A Turkish man hijacked a commercial passenger plane on Tuesday flying from the mainly Kurdish south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, but then gave himself up to the authorities, an Ankara airport official said, adding that police believed he acted from personal, not political motives, and may be mentally ill.
Africa needs to rely less on donors and pump more money into its public health systems, Botswana’s Health Minister said in Johannesburg on Tuesday while briefing journalists following the opening of the third ordinary session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health.
All South Africa’s vehicle testing stations, vehicle-registering authorities and driver’s-licence testing centres are closed until Friday, the Department of Transport said on Tuesday. The closure is due to the upgrading of the old National Transport Information System to the new eNaTIS system, a transport spokesperson said.
A stork that flew from Germany to die on a Free State farm in December last year is now making headlines on the internet, the Volksblad newspaper reported on Tuesday. Prinzesschen (Princess), a white stork (Ciconia ciconia), died on December 23 last year on the farm Uitzicht between Wesselsbron and Hoopstad.
The South African newspaper market needs no spies to keep a nervous eye on a newcomer armed with 127Â 000 instant readers. As the Sunday Times‘s daily version, simply titled the Times, gears up for a June launch, its editor, Ray Hartley, is blogging about the birthing pangs.
North Korea is running out of time to start dismantling its nuclear weapons programme before a weekend deadline, a top White House adviser told North Korean officials on Tuesday during a rare visit to Pyongyang. Meanwhile, United States officials have resolved a separate financial dispute that has stymied progress in the arms talks.
A suspect in the axe murder of estate agent Andre Weitz was found on the roof of the Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital trying to escape, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Professor Sean Kaliski, specialist of forensic psychiatric services in the Western Cape, testified at the trial of Michael Bernard van Zyl, who is charged with Weitz’s murder.
Action in the Vodacom Cup resumes this weekend after the Easter break with quarterfinal contenders looking to secure home-ground advantage for the knockout stages of the competition. This weekend sees the final round of league fixtures with four semifinal places still up for grabs.
United States President George Bush said on Tuesday that he will sign a Bill to permit federal funding of research using human embryos that cannot develop into fetuses. At the same time, he said he will again reject a Bill that would clear the way for the government to pay for largely unrestricted stem-cell research on viable embryos.
A damages claim of more than R500 000 against the police and prisons services will cost rightwinger Piet ”Skiet” Rudolph and two others dearly. A Pretoria High Court judge on Tuesday dismissed with costs a damages claim instituted by Rudolph and fellow Orde Boerevolk members Wentzel Laubscher and Andre van der Walt.